A book mentioned...awesome!

Not too long ago someone mentioned a book like this to me and I regret not buying it. So when someone here mentioned one they liked (Barbara?), I ordered it fast delivery at amazon. I'm reading it 100 mph now. I'm half way through.WOW!

It is written from a Christian perspective. Therefore, it will not be everyones "cup of tea." This author has seen it all.

She says in one of the early chapters that if your child is developementally delayed , these things are more complicated and require more thought. She mentions how there are variables with-i families and with each adult child.

But generally, she says that she sees now where she and other well meaning parents like her often need help setting up boundaries, etc.

She has a "helpful acronym." It's called SANITY

S Stop enabling, stop blaming yourself and stop the flow of money
A Assemble a support group
N Nip excuses in the bud
I Implement rules and boundaries
T Trust your instincts
Y Yield everything to G-d (obviously this can convtroversial to some)

She has ten (10) suggestions for Breaking the Enabling Cycle. They are in brief:
1. Take care of your own spiritual, physical, emotional and financial health.'
2. Express love and attention to your spouse and other children, as well as to your troubled child.
3. Do not accept excuses.
4. Understand and clarify right and wrong. Don't make excuses for what you believe.
5. Make fact based judgments.
6. Uphold standards of behavior that protect your morals, values and integrity.
7. Give your adult child unconditional love and support with-o meddling and with-o money.
8. Listen to music and other uplifting materials.
9. Celebrate life and love as much as possible.
10. Consinsistently practice the six steps to sanity (acronym above).

Lots of discussion about parental guilt..real, imagined...everything in between. There is some discussion of the frustration of seeing parents who don't understand the need for setting boundaries, yet the need for compassion as well.

This book and ones like it seem like good reading for folks here. If anyone has read anything like this that has been helpful for them...please post here or pm me. Hope this has helped someone here today.

p.s. I doubled checked and the book Barbara mentioned was different: Don't Let Your Kids Kill You

Finished the book and thought it was very good.
One thing that was very helpful was in the back, she talked about special considerations. She had a small section on adult children with disabilities. She specificially mentioned bipolar disorder. Perhaps this confusion has come up before. Anyway, she talked about working with physicians and other medical professionals to attempt to determine if limitations are present and to work within those limitations. She said each case would be different and that a physician might be the best person to help sort it out. She indicated that a person could have a disability and with extra time be expected to be fully productive in the world. She also said that it was important that the focus should not be on possible limitations, but on abilities. She said adult children still need to be expected to do the best they can do and we still should not enable. She talked about the difference between helping and enabling and strongly encouraged parents to know the difference.